Last evening, the Ducal patrol sent to drive the vile necromancer from the ruins of Gygax tower was forced back to their camp in defeat.

The patrol of 8 spearmen and 6 crossbowmen was led by the valiant Sir Theoderick Plankchest along with 4 unmounted knights from his personal retinue. They were aided by the mysterious enchanter Heironymus Gottlieb.

Sir Theoderick led the patrol to the ruins from the south, winding their way through the forested hills and broken terrain of the Mount Spillman wastes. Despite the long march and harshness of the land, their spirits were high – due to Gottlieb’s powerful enchantments and the righteousness of their quest. However, that resolve did not last long in the face of the necromancer’s horrors. Late afternoon on the fourth day of the patrol Sir Theoderick and company encountered the necromancer. That evilest of sorcerers was aided not only the summoned remains of long dead soldiers, but also a number of Stygian serpent-men. Is any more proof of the demonic nature of the Stygians needed?!?!?

By all accounts, the initial moments of the battle went well. The crossbowmen, bolstered by Gottleib, concentrated their first volley on what appeared to be an undead war-chieftain. The horror was no doubt once a great hero like our Sir Theoderick, dug up from his tomb and impelled into service by that unspeakable scion of darkness our men were there to vanquish. Nonetheless, it fell to their quarrels.

Sir Theoderick, eager to battle the necromancer, then led his knights forward. He was separated from them as they were slowed by the unevenness of the ground. Surrounded by both skeletal warriors and war-maddened Stygians; and blasted by foul necromancies, the great hero Sir Theoderick fell. Our troubadours will sing this of the great hero’s exploits: before he succumbed to his wounds, he dispatched a great number of skeletons and snake-men back into the pits of hell. Sir Theoderick’s retinue, unable to save him, were determined to avenge him. They rushed into the Stygians but managed to inflict only minor wounds upon the scaly beasts. Last reliable witnesses report that all but 1 of the knights had fallen and he was badly outnumbered.

Perhaps a worse fate befell the spearmen. They were separated from the main charge, and forced a hundred or so feet to the east by a thick growth of trees. Proceeding forward in column, they advanced directly into a warband of the undead. Within moments the battle was joined by a hulking snake-demon, which despite its great size appeared from the trees with no sign… as if summoned by darkest magic. Even with the aid of Heironymus' spells, the spearmen quickly fell to the combined onslaught. Only one or two perished in the encounter. The majority, driven mad with fright of the undead, cast off their arms and fled gibbering into the forest.

Half of the crossbowmen tried to relieve Sir Theoderick and his retinue in the main front of the fight. To that end they fired as rapidly as they could into both Stygian and Skeleton. In truth, the number of casualties due to their efforts was greater than that of the knights. The other half, alerted by the screams of the spearmen, turned to the east and prepared to face the skeletons that routed their comrades. Instead of skeletal warriors, they saw the great Stygian serpent-devil sneaking its way through rubble and brush toward them. To their credit and honor (or perhaps to Heironymus’) they remained composed and felled the beast with a volley of quarrels.

It is at that point, that loyal camp aide and observer Timmus of Shropshiringtonhamptonville quit the field, making all haste to deliver this honest report.

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We set the terrain up ahead of time. A mix of Tree stands, rocks, some ruins, and a couple of hills. The play area was about 2.5-3’ x 4’ or so. We rolled a d6 for number of turns (4). Victory condition was: kill the enemy.

Overall impression was that the game went very fast, despite it being our first time playing.

A few mistakes were made; it was the first game after all:

Range was miscounted at least once. Die modifiers were applied inconsistently. Fanatics were immune to *all* morale checks, instead of just unit checks. The biggest mistake we made was with morale. We were using morale ratings for individual checks, instead of morale score.

It did not take long for news of maddened ducal soldiers to reach Sir Skarl Uberjager – master of the royal hunting lodge in the Northern wood. After ruminating on the tales of necromancy and demons, and consulting the druid Catstevens Moonshadow, Skarl summoned his men to the lodge’s great hall. He called for volunteers to go north and seek out the remnants of that lost patrol. The next morning Skarl dispatched 5 of his bravest and most skilled huntsman, armed with his own magic arrows (and terrific hangovers) into those haunted woods.

The hunters travelled deep into dangerous swampland and forests thick with wild and vicious beasts. The first two days of their trek, however, passed without incident. On the eve of the third day they spotted giant carrion birds circling overhead to the northeast. Overzealous and overconfident in their magical shafts, some of the huntsmen fired at the diseased poultry while out of range – alerting them. The carrion birds were not all that was alerted either.. the moans of the dead chorused from the surrounding wood.

Wisely the men retreated back to a small hillock, mostly clear of trees, and readied their bows for the approach of the undead from the northeast. You can only imagine their surprise as instead, a goblin riding a horse-sized, giant wasp broke out of the woodline to the west! Before they could wheel around and face the new threat, the diminutive rider spat poisonous darts at them, catching Jaccob Redshirt in the throat. Jaccob must be commended, though frothing and weakened by the poison, he did not succumb fully to it, and fought on that day! The huntsmen returned fire, and though it took nearly a dozen arrows, they felled both rider and beast.

Then they turned their attention back to the carrion birds, now flying toward them at great speed. Another volley of arrows, and they were driven off. But the hunters had no time to celebrate their victories… that very moment, several swamp goblins erupted from the brush and trees surrounding the base of the hill. They turned to face the small goblin horde, but could not fire swiftly enough to prevent their ascending the hillside and joining them in melee. Bjarl Cjarlson, the westernmost hunter on the hill valiantly stood off three of them with his longsword. Despite receiving several wounds, Bjarl held the goblins off until his comrades could come to his aide.

Bjarl’s shouts of combat barely rose above the wailing dead as they emerged into a clearing to the northeast. There were many of them, gibbering ghouls for the most part… but amongst them, some sort of infernal machine drug by skeletal warriors…it flung screaming skulls at them. The horror. The hunters ignored the ghouls (and goblins) and grouped their arrows into that horrible abomination. Fortunately, it did not last long. Just in time, they were able give Bjarl relief. Reeling from his wounds he hurled himself backward from the advancing goblin rush, the other hunters took that opportunity to present those goblins with such a volley of fire as no goblin has ever seen, or likely ever will. No goblins survived it.

The hunters then turned their attentions to the scrabbling, cackling ghouls. As the ghouls approached the hunters fired several volleys into them, finally killing the last as it reached the hilltop.

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Rolled 1d4+3 for Turns. Terrain was settled by clearing the board, then each player rolled 1d6 for number of Terrain “points”. For one point you could add a piece of terrain, for 2 points you could move a piece of terrain, for 3 you could remove a piece. Once the terrain was placed, we rolled randomly to determine order of troop placement. On the one hand early placement was good, because you got to choose your starting area; on the other bad because the others got to see your placement before setting their own troops up... this worked out very well for balance.

The board ended up mostly trees and rocks on the Swamp Goblin side, some Hills in the middle where the Humans ended up, and Trees and a large clearing on the Undead side.

Much faster game this time, attributed to the smaller scale of the fight, and that we had some experience with the rules now.

Last edited by yesman on Sat Mar 07, 2009 4:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

Very cool write-ups.You might double check your point costing though, especially with any model that has a ranged attack (including spells). The point costs "seem" low to me.I did a quick check on the longbowmen from the second game, and I came up with a point cost of 116 points, instead of 60.Kevin

That *would* explain how a supposed 300 points of longbowmen took on a combined 600 points of undead and goblins with no casualties. I suppose I should double-check the math by hand; I designed everything with the .xls generator.

Hmm.. I recalculated the longbowmen by hand and came up with a point cost of 66.15323. I think the difference between my new total and the cost figured by the generator is in how Magic weapons are handled. The generator is adding 1.5 to the total cost of the weapon, whereas I think it's meant to be added to the Die Modifiers Chart on p. 66.

I used the spreadsheet I have again, which was put together for a derivative ARES project that never got released. The longbowman, with no magic weapon, costs 74 points. Adding the magic bow raises it to 103, with the ranged combat weapon factor alone being 348.

I'm not sure how I got 116 the first time.

You might double check to make sure you're calculating the weapon factor for the ranged combat portion of the model correctly. I don't have the book here, so I can't look up the dice table. Ranged weapons with good quality dice and longer ranges can get "real expensive, real fast."Kevin

Now, after all of this is said, I believe there is a flaw with the point costing, and which may have already been addressed by the FAQ. Unlike the melee weapon factor, you'll note that missile weapon factor mentions nothing about taking movement into account. I believe it should, and that would change things considerably.